in the foot. We've seen several instances of people blowing away
pg_xlog and pg_clog, for example, because they "don't need log files".
Or how about failing to keep adequate backups? That's a sure way for an
ignorant admin to lose data too.
There is a difference between actively doing something stupid and failing to realize a maintenence task is required.
PostgreSQL should stop working. When the admin tries to understand why,
they can read a troubleshooting FAQ and say "oops, I gotta run this vacuum
thingy." That is a whole lot better than falling off a cliff you didn't
even know was there.
There is another way to look at this as lends itself to mohawksoft's argument.
More often than not DBAs and Sysadmins are neither one. They are people that get shoved into the job because they happen to mention around the water cooler that they "once" installed linux/freebsd -- whatever.
Maybe it is an executive that has some of his brains left after sitting behind a desk all day for the last 10 years. One day he/she gets a thought in his head to create a new project named "foo".
He does not want to waste his internal resources so said executive decides he will do it himself as a hobby. For some reason, the project actually succeeds (I have seen this many times) and the company starts using it.
Well guess what... it uses PostgreSQL. The guy isn't a DBA, heck he is even really a programmer. He had know idea about this "vacuum" thing. He had never heard of other databases having to do it.
So they run for a year, and then all of a sudden **BOOM** the world ends.
Do you think they are going to care that we "documented" the issue? Uhmmm no they won't. Chances are they will drop kick PostgreSQL and bad talk it to all their other executive friends.
In short, this whole argument has the mark of irresponsibility on both parties but it is is the PostgreSQL projects responisbility to make reasonable effort to produce a piece of software that doesn't break.
We are not talking about a user who ran a query: delete from foo;
At this point we have a known critical bug. Usually the PostgreSQL community is all over critical bugs. Why is this any different?
It sounds to me that people are just annoyed that users don't RTFM. Get over it. Most won't. If users RTFM more often, it would put most support companies out of business.
Sincerely,
Joshua D. Drake
-- Command Prompt, Inc., home of Mammoth PostgreSQL - S/ODBC and S/JDBC Postgresql support, programming shared hosting and dedicated hosting. +1-503-667-4564 - [EMAIL PROTECTED] - http://www.commandprompt.com PostgreSQL Replicator -- production quality replication for PostgreSQL
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